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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29922588">the ease of temptation</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kogamis/pseuds/kogamis'>kogamis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Psycho-Pass</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Sexual Content</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:14:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,157</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29922588</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kogamis/pseuds/kogamis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Akane catches up with an old friend.</p><p>Written for Shinkane Week 2019, day 4.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kougami Shinya/Tsunemori Akane</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the ease of temptation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>22:19</p><p>The mesmerizing lights of Tokyo are one of the things Akane loves the most about the city. At night, when the sky of ink backdrops towers and buildings that each forge a unique shape to every onlooker, she feels the lights are especially dazzling.</p><p>She’s been enamored with the faux magic since her first drive through the city at night, when a last-minute interview for the CID awaited her in the morning, prompting an unexpected trip from her home in Chiba. She still remembers the long breath she drew as her eyes settled on the skyline for the first time, watching the buildings shift around each other as the car drove on. She remembers wondering which building would be her hotel, and what excitement she had to look forward to once she started her job and moved to the city permanently; it was not unlike now, except the hotel she searches for in the distance is not hers, and she finds herself admittedly far more nervous than excited this time around.</p><p>The car drives automatically, which is unusual for her; Akane enjoys driving and normally likes to switch off the auto-pilot setting. But from time to time, especially at times like these, where her mind is somewhere else and her eyes wander aimlessly outside the window, she lets the car drive itself.</p><p>She approaches the hotel as the car pulls into the parking lot, and Akane’s stomach does a flip as the building draws closer. Her gaze flits between lit windows, counting up the rows until she hits floor number six. Somewhere, one of the windows belongs to room #644, and knowing him, the curtains are likely closed, drawn open only enough so that his eyes can briefly dart outside to watch cars zip by on the freeway in between paragraphs of the book he’s reading.</p><p>When she steps off the elevator onto the sixth floor, her heart beats with the rhythm of her footsteps–perhaps even faster–as she reads and follows the signs. Her fist raises, clenching once to squeeze out the nerves, then knocks twice, and takes an anxious step back when the door opens.</p><p>He’s wearing a black bomber jacket that covers a white collared shirt tucked into dark jeans, somewhat reminiscent of the casual style he donned his formalwear all those years ago. She relaxes the second she catches his eye, feeling her shoulders unclench and the corners of her lips turning up; what had she been so nervous about?</p><p>He doesn’t offer a greeting like a normal person, and instead steps to the side so she can enter.</p><p>“You’re a bit overdressed,” he says, his voice as rough and calloused as ever. She's missed the sound of it. “But you look nice.”</p><p>“I came from a dinner party in Chiba,” she explains. Chiba was almost an hour away, which left her with no time to change clothes, although she would hardly classify a black pencil skirt and a white ribbed turtleneck as overdressed. But she doesn’t argue, and lets him take her coat to hang it in the closet.</p><p>The room is small, contemporary, with one bed, a desk with a swivel chair, and a small black chaise in the corner where a paperback book sits open but facedown. The decorations are sleek and modern, brightening the space considerably. A mirror taking up the wall alongside the bed makes the room feel bigger than it looks. She was right about the curtains.</p><p>He seems uncomfortable the further into the room they venture. Or perhaps awkward was a better word.</p><p>“There’s a bar downstairs,” she says, and that’s all she has to say. Soon she’s with him back in the elevator, and then she sits across from him in a dimly-lit booth, ordering a margarita.</p><p>“This place seems a little fancy to be holed-up in,” she says casually. “It doesn’t really suit you.”</p><p>“It wasn’t my choice,” he says. “And you’re right. The room feels stuffy.”</p><p>She giggles a little to herself, as she was thinking he would say something like that. It’s nice to know he hasn’t changed.</p><p>“How do the scanners work?” she asks. “Has your hue…?” Her voice trails off as she isn’t sure how to word her question, how to ask if his psycho-pass has improved at all, especially since she is doubtful that it has. But she can’t think of another explanation for how he’s able to be temporarily placed here and walk around unsupervised, or to enter the bar without flagging the scanners.</p><p>He points to his skull with a single finger, eerily similar to the shape of a gun.</p><p>“It’s classified,” he says.</p><p>“You can’t tell me?”</p><p>“That means I can’t be scanned without permission.”</p><p>“They’re placing an awful lot of trust in you to not cause trouble,” she says. He chuckles.</p><p>“Still not holding back your harsh remarks, I see.”</p><p>Before she can think of a response, their drinks are set down in front of them, Akane’s bright margarita glass standing tall above his golden scotch. She takes a tentative sip, watching as he downs a couple gulps without haste, nor does he grimace from the sultry taste.</p><p>“How are you?” she asks, her voice lowering. He stares into the contents of his glass, held by his fingers at the rim. The last time she’d seen him he wasn’t terrible, satisfied with distracting himself amidst guerilla operations and tactical advising. But satisfied doesn’t translate to being well, and based on one of their final conversations, he hadn’t seemed all that well at the time.</p><p>“I’m alright,” he says finally. It’s hard to get a read on him, to see how much of him is telling the truth. He notices the look of concern on her face despite her attempts to mask it. “Really. I am.”</p><p>“Have you thought about receiving psychological care?” she asks, not yet sold.</p><p>“I’ve contemplated.”</p><p>“That sounds like a no, then.”</p><p>“I’m still exploring my options. I only got back in the country a couple days ago.”</p><p>“Yes, I’m sure Poe’s poetry has all sorts of resourceful information about your options.” He smirks at her remark over his glass.</p><p>“Are you familiar, then?” he asks.</p><p>She shakes her head regrettably. “Not as well as I'd like to be. I do more tactical reading these days.”</p><p>“You can borrow it if you’d like.”</p><p>She smiles softly around the salt on her glass. “I’m tempted, but I’m not sure when I’d be able to return it.”</p><p>He shrugs. It’s not like she’d be on a deadline, seeing as how he isn’t going anywhere. But for her, that's the part she's having trouble with; he isn't leaving, and that much has yet to stick with her completely. It is almost too good to be true, and she has difficulty believing it when she thinks about him. He had been away for so long, and even then she’d only known him for a few months prior to his disappearance. She has so strongly associated the word with him that it feels unreal for him to be anything but gone.</p><p>Did she even have the right to think of him as much as she did all these years, when she’d only known him for such a short amount of time in comparison?</p><p>“Why Chiba?” he asks, breaking her from her thoughts.</p><p>“What do you mean” she asks.</p><p>“Your dinner party.”</p><p>“Oh,” she says, her voice turning surprisingly sour. “It was for a school reunion.”</p><p>“You don’t seem too thrilled to have gone.” He's a quick drinker; he finishes off his drink with a final swig and waves the bartender back over.</p><p>“Well Chiba isn’t exactly nearby,” she explains. “It takes an hour just to drive there. And then my other friend had to bail last minute, so I was left alone stuck with having to explain the death of my best friend over and over to everyone who hasn’t heard yet."</p><p>She pauses, mostly because the bartender steps into earshot near their table, but also because she needs to collect the rest of her thoughts. She hasn’t yet finished her margarita but asks for a second anyway, since he’s there, and finishes speaking once he’s gone to prepare their order.</p><p>“Of course there were people who she knew who couldn’t come to the funeral, and some people who just didn’t know it happened at all, but there was an overwhelming amount of reactions that just seemed…” Her voice hangs in the air for a moment as she searches for the right word.</p><p>“Insincere?” he offers.</p><p>“Yes,” she says. “Exactly. It became all anyone wanted to talk about.”</p><p>“That sounds exhausting.”</p><p>The way she swishes down a couple gulps at once rather than the polite sips she’d been taking tells him he’s right. Then she continues on, mentioning how one of her old classmates in particular was someone she has the misfortune of knowing more than she’d like to. He watches her finish the rest of her drink and wonders what she means by that. An ex-boyfriend, perhaps? Or was he simply fabricating reasons to dislike this individual, other than by the way she spoke of him?</p><p>“He dated Yuki for…I’m not sure, a month, maybe?” she says, immediately dissolving his hypothesis and leaving him feeling foolish. “They broke up around the time we took our placement exams. Back then he found it just intriguing how he and I were the only two to score an A ranking for the Ministry of Commerce, which he brought up again tonight and wouldn’t shut up about it. That, and his absolutely incredibly well-paying job as a financial consultant.”</p><p>She rolls her eyes and immediately reaches for her second drink once they’re dropped off at their table. He can’t help but feel amused watching her speak. It seems his hypothesis wasn’t terribly far off.</p><p>She seems to notice his gaze intent on her but misreads it, by the way she suddenly sits up straight, as though she’s caught herself in the middle of something she isn’t supposed to be doing.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she says, giving him a bashful smile. “I’m blabbering on about it. I’ll stop.”</p><p>Kogami shrugs. He isn’t bothered. He’s the one who asked in the first place.</p><p>“If you need to rant about slimy bastards who can’t take a hint, then you should rant,” he says simply, flashing her a sympathetic half-grin. She lets out a curt laugh, though she still looks apologetic. So he adds, “Dude’s way out of his league, anyway. Doesn’t seem like your type in the slightest.”</p><p>“And just what do you know about my type?” She narrows her eyes inquisitively at him over the rim of her glass, hiding her lips behind it.</p><p>He doesn’t miss a beat. “I know you’re not into someone with a boring office job, or incapable of holding an even remotely stimulating conversation, and definitely not someone shorter than you.”</p><p>For a moment she looks puzzled, and then her face softens into a curious smile. “Your profiling skills are as sharp as ever.”</p><p>He can’t tell if she’s referring to herself or to Mr. Financial Consultant, or maybe both, but he shrugs off the compliment anyway.</p><p>“Anything else exciting or otherwise noteworthy?”</p><p>Her eyes roll a second time, like the mere act of giving thought to these previous events was as annoying as experiencing them.</p><p>“He invited me to his apartment so I could talk more about the tragedy if needed,” she says. The way her voice hardens on one particular phrase, coupled with the lingering traces of anger in her eyes, makes him want to subvert the topic.</p><p>“So how did you give him the slip?”</p><p>“I told him I had a date to get going to,” she says simply. He nearly chokes on his drink. The gentle rose rising to the tops of her cheeks doesn’t go unnoticed.</p><p>He doesn’t remember choosing to lean forward, but then his arms are crossed on the table in front of him and there’s noticeably less distance between them.</p><p>“Is that what this is?” he asks.</p><p>“Would you call it something else?”</p><p>He keeps his gaze fixed on hers, looking for any hints of hesitancy, uncertainty, or even a trace of humor, yet he finds none of that. She stares back at him blankly; it’s a genuine question, and she expects a genuine answer.</p><p>“I guess not.”</p><p>He studies her again, but differently this time–as though he’s letting himself truly look at her for the first time in a long time, which he is. Her face is no longer curved with juvenile softness like the first day they met; instead it’s been replaced with hardened edges, with stories he’s yet to listen to. Her eyes have grown more intimidating than ever, though she holds in them a gentleness that hasn’t faded in the slightest.</p><p>“Is there something on my face?” she asks. She brings a hand up to touch her cheek subconsciously.</p><p>“No,” he answers. Then he notices she is shivering. “Are you cold?”</p><p>Her composure shifts suddenly, like she hadn’t even noticed that she was, in fact, cold, until he said something.</p><p>“A little,” she says. She glances up to the ceiling, finding an air vent positioned directly above their table. Just her luck; purposefully picking the booth furthest off to the side would, of course, have some sort of drawback.</p><p>When she turns her attention back to him, he’s shrugging out of his jacket.</p><p>“Oh, no, you don’t have to-” But of course, because he’s him, he ignores her protest and passes it to her over the table. She hesitates but takes it anyway, thanking him quietly. When she slips her arms through the sleeves, it’s warm and smells like his cigarettes. She finds herself inexplicably off-put finding his scent somewhere other than her ashtray.</p><p>“Aside from all of that,” he says, referring to her less-than-pleasant dinner party, “how are you?”</p><p>“I’m doing fine,” she says. “Though I feel like I’ve talked about myself too much.”</p><p>“I don’t mind,” he says.</p><p>“I want to hear one of your stories,” she insists. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty to pick from.”</p><p>“You’re putting me on the spot,” he says with a small smile. “Now it’ll be hard to think of one.”</p><p>“Did you meet anyone special?” she asks.</p><p>“What do you mean by ‘special?’”</p><p>“Like interesting, noteworthy, quirky, I don’t know. Someone with a story.”</p><p>He has to think for a moment, though it looks as though he’s contemplating what he wants to tell rather than searching for something to say.</p><p>First he tells her of the few temporary partners he traveled with after leaving SEAUn, who were mostly mercenaries like him skating by and keeping a low profile. She chuckles to herself as she tries to picture him, of all people, keeping a low profile, which she then explains once he questions her reaction. He briefly laughs along with her, but it doesn’t last long.</p><p>His eyes change when his story shifts, and he tells her of a young girl he met named Tenzing. He doesn’t tell her much. His story focuses more on the act of saving a bus full of refugees from armed guerillas–which, to her, sounds a lot more like him than in the previous tale–and how he was followed by the young girl, who’d been on the bus, to seek self-defense training.</p><p>He tells her she was a cheerful, enthusiastic child with a lot of passion and promise, and that he agreed to train her because she was an orphan of war, and that he felt sorry for her. He pauses there, and she can see the sadness hardening his eyes like steel. She can tell that there is more to the story, but he seems hesitant to continue. So she gives him an out.</p><p>“Sometimes I wonder if kindness is actually your true weakness,” she muses aloud.</p><p>That takes him aback. “As opposed to something else?”</p><p>“I would have said fear before, but now I might be thinking differently.”</p><p>He leans back against the booth cushion and studies her with a calculating eye, crossing his arms over his chest. “You must think you have me all figured out, then, right?”</p><p>“Is it rude of me to say that I think I do? To a degree at least?”</p><p>“It’s not so much rude as it is ballsy,” he says.</p><p>She laughs, but goes on to explain her reasoning. “I’ll admit, you puzzled me when we first met,” she says. “I couldn’t figure you out for awhile.”</p><p>“That’s funny,” he interjects. “I used to feel the same about you.”</p><p>“Do you think you have me all figured out, too?”</p><p>“More or less. To a degree,” he adds with a smirk. “Though I’m not as confident as you seem to be.”</p><p>“What it comes down to is an understanding of someone’s character,” she says. It took her a long time to figure that out, though she hadn’t figured it out all on her own. “When you understand their character, you can understand their reasoning behind most things.”</p><p>“And when you understand reasoning, you can make all sorts of inferences,” he finishes. “That’s what you were going to say, right?”</p><p>She nods. She gives him a curious smile, seeing the gears turn in his head. She wonders what he’s going to say next.</p><p>“Put your theory to the test, then,” he challenges, throwing back the last of his drink and setting the glass down at the end of the table. “If you have me all figured out, tell me what you think my type is.”</p><p>It’s her turn to be taken aback, and she feels her cheeks grow warm. She avoids his eyes, at first wondering why this prompt of all things, then supposes it’s his way of making up for poking fun at her regarding the same topic earlier. Either way, she decides to humor him.</p><p>“You’re similar to me,” she says thoughtfully, “you prefer someone intellectually stimulating. Monotony bores you, so you like someone who can keep you on your toes–but not someone too reckless, even though that’s rather hypocritical, if you ask me.” He chuckles at the abrupt drop in her tone, riddled with vexation, before she continues. “You have a very protective nature, so you prefer someone that you can easily protect. But you also like when someone has a strong sense of self and can be assertive when they need to be. There’s a complicated balance there, but the right person won’t make it complicated.”</p><p>He takes a long moment to consider everything when she finishes.</p><p>“I’d give that about an eighty-five percent accuracy,” he says finally. “Maybe ninety.”</p><p>“Did I miss something?”</p><p>“You didn’t mention anything about physicalities.”</p><p>“You’re not materialistic; you value intellect more than anything. I didn’t think things that are particularly important to you.”</p><p>“Not most things, but some things.”</p><p>Now she’s the one who doesn’t remember leaning forward. “Like what?”</p><p>He mirrors her instinctively, with a peculiar repressed grin on his lips–almost coy. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”</p><p>“You’re the one who mentioned it,” she shrugs. She distracts herself by sipping on what was left of her drink.</p><p>“Was I?”</p><p>She backtracks when she pauses to recall the exchange just a moment before. “It was more of a group effort,” she decides. “But either way, I wouldn’t consider physical preferences as something that can be deduced by one’s character.”</p><p>“All right then,” he says. “I take it back. I’ll give you ninety-five percent accuracy.”</p><p>“What about the other five?”</p><p>“You really don’t settle for less than perfect scores, do you?”</p><p>She laughs, because he’s right, yet she fixes a look on him that tells him she isn’t backing down until she hears his answer. Always so persistent and thorough. He sighs.</p><p>“It would be inappropriate to say,” he says quietly, and he almost feels bad for the urge he has to chuckle when the rose hue returns to her complexion. She finishes her drink then scoots the empty glass to sit discarded beside his.</p><p>“Is it because you’re shy?” she asks. There’s a ghost of a challenge in her tone that he’s positive he isn’t imagining. He no longer feels bad.</p><p>He chooses his next words carefully.</p><p>“It’s…more of a conversation that would be better had upstairs.”</p><p>For a moment, the air between them is stiffer from his implications hanging heavily in it. It takes her a second to process his words, and then she seems to process them a second time to have them finally click, cued by her eyes widening just slightly. Before she responds to him, she checks the time via the terminal on her wrist. He’s surprised by how strongly he anticipates her answer, by how his heart beat with a more vigorous rhythm in his chest than it was just moments before.</p><p>“I’m tempted, but,” she says, following her words with a sigh, and he already knows what comes next. “It’s getting late, and I have plans in the morning. I’m sorry.”</p><p>He shakes his head, waving away her apology. Her unwavering sense of responsibility hasn’t changed either, it seems. His ego isn’t bruised by any means. The admittance of temptation alone is enough to satisfy him.</p><p>“Perhaps when you find time to return the book, you won’t be visiting too late,” he says.</p><p>“I’ll make sure to leave the following morning open, too,” she says, offering him a smile before she gets up to pay the bill.</p><p>Back upstairs, she swaps his jacket for her coat, and even though hers is thicker and more suited for the wintry gusts swirling outside, it’s not nearly as warm. She takes Poe from his outstretched hand and tucks it into her purse, and from there she isn’t sure how to bid him goodnight. She feels a desire to do something, but nothing fitting comes to mind. He doesn’t offer anything other than holding the door open for her.</p><p>As she steps through the door, she assures him she will call a taxi instead of driving herself home, and promises she will come say hello in the morning when she returns for her car–if he’s awake, that is–and then he returns her ‘goodnight’ as she makes her way down the hall.</p><p>She listens for the sound of his door closing as she approaches the elevator, but she doesn’t turn around even though she never hears it.</p><p>Once down in the lobby, she makes her way to the front door with a taxi service pulled up on her cell phone. On her way, she passes by the bar she was just sitting in a few minutes ago. A smile dances on her lips, warming her from head to toe. It may be the most recent, but this memory is definitely the one she’s most fond of, even if it was rather fleeting in comparison to the others.</p><p>And then something about that thought makes her stop in her tracks, just a short distance from the revolving door. Her thumb hovers over the button she’s just pressed, promising a momentary pick-up, but her eyes are fixed on the cancel button in the corner.</p><p>Does she really have to leave so soon? She hadn’t seen him in over two years, and she’s already leaving with no definitive plans to see him again after what, less than an hour? That hardly seems fair in comparison.</p><p>She turns back to the bar, and from where she stands, peering into the open space, she can see the table where they sat. The bartender is only just now collecting their used cups, preparing to wipe down the table, and she remembers the way his hand curled around the base of his glass when he drank, how his fingertip drew circles around the rim when he spoke, how his eyes shone in a way that matched his glass reflecting the light fixtures above when he gave her an implied invitation back upstairs.</p><p>Perhaps it’s the two margaritas to blame, but she quickly hits ‘cancel’ before she can stop herself. And then she’s walking back into the bar to the counter, and purchases a bottle of Cabernet while she types up a message to Kaori. She hits send, takes back her card and freshly unsealed bottle, and makes her way back to the elevator.</p><p>He’s just finished undoing the last button of his shirt when there’s an unexpected knock at the door, barely audible with the shower running. He leans past the curtain, just avoiding the hot stream, to twist the knob and shut off the water. As he makes his way to the door, he briefly wonders if it’s Akane, but he knows she didn’t forget anything; or maybe it’s a housekeeper, though it seems a bit late for that.</p><p>When he opens the door, it is Akane standing before him, holding up a bottle of Cabernet with a look of question in her eyes. They drop briefly to his midsection, then flit back up to his face just as quickly as they fell.</p><p>“This isn’t a taxi,” he says, leaning against the door frame. He can see her throat contract when she swallows.</p><p>“I don’t need one,” she asserts.</p><p>He suppresses a grin and steps to the side, then closes the door behind her. She slips off her shoes and drops her purse to the small table next to the closet.</p><p>“What happened to your morning plans?” he asks, taking from her the wine bottle as well as her coat. He holds onto the back of the collar while she slips herself out of it.</p><p>“I pushed them back,” she says. “Did I interrupt something?” She gestures to his shirt, which still hangs open from his shoulders.</p><p>“Just a shower.” With her coat hung properly in the closet, he slides the door shut.</p><p>“Well don’t let me stop you,” she says, offering a kind smile. “I can wait.”</p><p>“You sure?”</p><p>She nods, then pulls the book of poetry from her purse as he turns and heads back into the bathroom, after tossing the bottle safely onto the bed. She can hear the water switch on through the closed door while she surveys the room, and reaches around her neck to remove her necklace.</p><p>A small stack of paper cups sit beside a coffee maker on the desk. They aren’t technically proper, but they work just fine for casual drinking. She pours herself a small amount, leaving her necklace and earrings on the desk, and curls up on the chaise with his book.</p><p>Kogami is quick; by the time Akane reads through only a couple pages, she hears the sudden absence of pouring water followed by the screech of shower curtain rungs being pulled to the side. She pauses her reading, sipping Cabernet from her paper cup, and decides to wait for him before she continues.</p><p>His hair is still wet when he sits down beside her, and he wears the same clothes as before, only his shirt is buttoned rather lazily. The top of his chest is exposed, and she has a nice view of his collarbone. She briefly wonders before deciding with suspicious certainty that he’s done it very much on purpose.</p><p>He glances down to read the page where she holds the book open.</p><p>“‘Annabelle Lee’ is one of my favorites,” he comments, before swallowing a rather generous amount of liquid from his own cup.</p><p>“Really?” she asks. “That’s a bit of a surprise to me.”</p><p>“What do you think of it?” he asks.</p><p>“I like it,” she says, “but I think I’d like it more if you read it aloud.” He gives her a perceptive smile, obliging, and he dumps back the rest of his wine impressively fast so he can take the book from her hands after discarding the cup to the floor. He invites her to lean into him, draping his arm behind her shoulders across the back of the chaise. She does, with a warm fluttering in her stomach, and curls her legs up onto the seat underneath her, resting her head comfortably against his shoulder.</p><p>As he reads, Akane finds that the poem is significantly better read in his voice, which is low and rough, compared to reading it in her head. Something about the rugged resonance of his voice telling the tale of a love so strong and intense that it makes angels envious, a love that ultimately suffers the tragedy of death, brings it to life, as though his voice alone could sculpt the story into reality.</p><p>He turns the page and continues to read, and she listens. Her eyes follow along with the words as he reads them aloud, and she sips on Cabernet until her cup is empty and she holds it lazily with both hands in her lap.</p><p>Eventually, the sound of his voice coaxes her eyes to relax, and they flutter closed. Before long, Kogami notices, and he pauses, craning his neck forward to inspect.</p><p>“You’re not falling asleep on me, are you?” he asks. She hasn’t, and her eyes open. Having his answer, he pulls back.</p><p>“No,” she answers anyway. “It’s just nice to hear you read.”</p><p>“You didn’t come back just to listen to me read.” It comes out as both a question and a statement, but she stiffens nevertheless when she feels his breath tickle her ear. She can feel his eyes on her, studying her, reading her reaction, and she wants to return his gaze, but she can’t bring herself to look away from the book in his lap.</p><p>She can speak, at the very least.</p><p>“What did I come back for, then?” she asks. Her words come out sounding stronger than she feels. She wants to say more, to help steer the conversation like she had absolutely no problem doing when she sat across the table from him earlier, but the warm shape of his body against hers is incredibly distracting. Her eyes study the shape of his hand, the bridges of his fingers as they rest on worn pages. She wonders what they feel like.</p><p>“A stimulating conversation, maybe,” he muses. His voice is lower than normal, and she can still feel his breath on her ear, and his arm draped behind her edges noticeably closer until she feels it against her back and his hand cups her shoulder.</p><p>“You are good at those,” she says through a shaky breath. She notices a small movement in the corner of her eyes so her gaze flits to it, and she finds herself eyeing the zipper of his pants.</p><p>“So I’ve heard.” Her cheeks start to feel warm.</p><p>“I liked the one we were having downstairs,” she manages. Kogami slowly closes the book, but continues to hold it in his lap.</p><p>He hums with feigned confusion, and though she cannot see his face, she can hear the smirk he’s undoubtedly wearing. “You’re going to have to refresh my memory.”</p><p>“We were talking about weaknesses,” she says, and as she speaks he moves the book to drop on the floor.</p><p>“We never did talk about yours, did we?”</p><p>She doesn’t know why, but she laughs. Maybe it’s because she’s feeling on edge, anticipating what comes next, and didn’t think this would be it.</p><p>“I really don’t know what my weakness is,” she says with uncertain honesty. She watches as his hand reaches for hers, plucking the empty cup from them and discarding it to join the book. “Sometimes I think I’m too cold-hearted.”</p><p>This time Kogami is the one to laugh. The sound of it bursting from his chest melts away some of the tension in her shoulders.</p><p>“What makes you think that?” he asks.</p><p>“Because my psycho-pass doesn’t cloud.”</p><p>“That’s the last word I would use to describe you,” he says, replacing the hole left gaping in her hands with his own. It’s big and warm and fits perfectly between hers, and holding it gives her a sudden rise of insurmountable courage, as though it were a chink in his armor that she can cling to for purchase. She turns her body just slightly so she can look up at him comfortably, and his hand moves from her shoulder to hover just over the back of her neck.</p><p>“How would you describe me, then?” she asks, hoping to turn the conversation to her favor. He mirrors her, pulling a leg up onto the seat so he can face her too.</p><p>Despite her effort, Kogami is impossible to catch off guard.</p><p>“Intellectually stimulating,” he says thoughtfully, and though he doesn’t smile, there is an unmistakable hint of amusement in the corners of his lips. “Maybe you can be a little reckless, but you work with caution. You’re careful and thoughtful. You’re small-” and when he says this, a charmed smile bleeds through his expression despite his efforts to suppress it, “-easy to protect. And you’re an independent thinker. You aren’t afraid to do things your own way. And you’re complicated, but in the best way.”</p><p>When he finishes, her cheeks are uncomfortably warm and he’s leaning a lot closer than he was before. She does, admittedly, feel touched upon hearing his words, but despite that, her eyes are wide and taken aback. It’s not verbatim, but he’s just repeated her words from earlier to describe her, and it’s a substantial pill for her to digest.</p><p>Still, brave words leave her mouth before she even realizes she is speaking.</p><p>“I give that a ninety-five percent,” she says, countering him, her tone incongruent with her demeanor. She’s tense, and she grips his hand to keep hers from trembling. He notices.</p><p>“That last five percent is making you nervous,” he observes aloud. His voice, though low and rough, somehow has an easing effect with an unusual gentleness. Maybe it’s the fact that he can read her like a book and she doesn’t have to say it that makes her relax, even if it’s only by a miniscule amount.</p><p>“A little,” she admits. He surprises her when he takes one of her hands and raises it, her eyes following out of curiosity.</p><p>“Don’t be,” he says to her skin. “It’s just me.” A kiss to the back of her hand sends an excited flutter rippling through her nerves, raising the hair on her arms as her heart leaps in her chest so loudly that she’s sure he can hear it.</p><p>He is right, and she’s fully aware of it. She knows she shouldn’t be nervous around him. There exists nobody else in the world that she trusts more than the man kissing her hand, holding her in the ghost of an embrace.</p><p>“Although there’d be no hard feelings if you got that taxi after all.”</p><p>It is this moment that secures her in place. He’s giving her an out, before they walk over the line that cannot be uncrossed. A line of which she has never strayed across before, not with anybody, nor has it ever been as close as it is now, just under her fingertips, encircling her with a tempting hand teasing the back of her neck and a knee guarding her in place.</p><p>Perhaps what makes her tremble is the stark unfamiliarity of senses heightened contrasting with how drawn she is to him, how she longs for nothing but to undo the rest of his buttons and lose herself in what comes after.</p><p>It’s sweet, but the idea of leaving now is simply laughable. Her hand travels to his thigh, gripping it with silent reassurance.</p><p>Her eyes, wide and brown and eager, say it even louder. His are stormy, and in them she can see the way his heart pounds mercilessly just as hers does, and yet there’s a coolness smoothing his slate sky into something tameable.</p><p>Control, she realizes, and she wonders in an instance like this what he’s like without it.</p><p>His long hand finally settles at the base of her neck, warm and ever present through the thin layer of her sweater. Her own hand falls from his grip to melt into the crook of his elbow as he moves to capture her jaw instead, and she practically pulls herself towards him by his thigh as he leans into her, until their lips meet and she’s delighted to find his are much softer than they look.</p><p>She’s pulled into his lap within moments, his hand cradling her underside and trapping her in place, though she hardly minds. Her fingers fumble awkwardly with the buttons of his shirt, pushing it open as far as his shoulders will allow once she frees him of the garment, her polished nails grazing his skin as she drags her hands up his neck to cup his jaws, holding him close as he kisses her furiously.</p><p>He breaks the kiss only to slip her sweater up over her head, and the second she’s free he captures her lips again, forcing them apart with his. His tongue, she finds, is just as soft and inviting as his lips.</p><p>Distracted, she doesn’t take much notice of his collection of her wrists, as he gently pulls each of them behind her back until he locks one hand ensnared tightly around them. She jumps at this, faltering from his lips, and rests her forehead against his, still close enough that she can feel his sultry breath warming her face.</p><p>“Too forward?” he asks, and his rough voice is low and just as hot.</p><p>She shakes her head, and she can feel her cheeks glowing with heat; they deepen in color when his eyes narrow curiously and he asks if she rather likes it, to which she nods. And she likes it a lot more when he rewards her honesty with a kiss, but this time he is slower, and more gentle, and as he kisses her his free hand trails down the exposed curves of her body until he’s inching under the hem of her skirt and slowly hiking it up her thigh.</p><p>She shudders when his fingers finally forge their way between her legs, and as he strokes her softly he breathes in every single one of the faint cries that spill from her lips.</p><p>“Are you still interested in that perfect score?” he asks, muttering in her ear. To her credit, she gives him a playful smirk despite the distracting treatment he’s giving her in her willfully confined predicament.</p><p>“The gentleman would really reveal his secrets to me?” she teases. He pulls back to look at her, shooting her a self-depreciating leer of his own.</p><p>“I’m no gentleman,” he says.</p><p>“You are with me,” she counters, meeting his gaze firmly. Looking at her, he can’t say she’s entirely wrong. His hand retracts, and although she can’t see it beneath the fabric of her skirt, her eyes dart down instinctively as if looking to see why he stopped. But just as quickly, he tips her gaze back up to his by the gentle grip of her chin, and he’s smiling at her strangely.</p><p>“I wonder why that is,” he says. His stare is warm and inviting, and it leaves her heart fluttering as he leans in, closing the distance between them once more, only his lips are rougher, and more insistent. Then he releases her wrists silently, placing them on his shoulders one at a time, and then he’s standing, lifting her into the air with him.</p><p>He lays her back on the bed, and the lights automatically dim, casting a dull, white glow over them that leaves her bare skin radiant like silver.</p><p>Her skirt is too restrictive, and that’s a problem; before he crawls over her frame, he rids her of it entirely, slipping the black from her silky legs along with her tights. She parts her knees for him eagerly, her lips awaiting his return with heated fervor.</p><p>In the dark, it’s easier. Hesitation no longer exists, and neither does the past that kept them apart for so long.</p><p>He murmurs in her ear with his hand buried beneath her panties, his touches no longer slow and soft, but fast, and rough with need. She struggles to keep up with him.</p><p>“I like someone who wants me to take the lead,” he says gruffly. It takes her only a quick moment to figure out that he really is revealing to her his secret. “Someone who likes to be submissive.”</p><p>She can feel the heat spreading across her face, like his rough voice melts into liquid that drips from his lips to her skin and ignites her all the way down to her core. He lets his words hang in the air for a few long moments, busying himself with leaving wet kisses along her neckline.</p><p>When her only response is nothing but breathy gasps, he turns the tables on her instead.</p><p>“Why don’t you tell me more about your type?” he goads. Being inexperienced, she doesn’t know how to answer, and his generous attention on her makes it difficult to think. But she likes this, more deeply than she thought she would, so that has to mean something, right?</p><p>She blurts it out without meaning to, but it’s not the wrong answer.</p><p>“You.”</p><p>By the way his lips freeze, lingering just above her skin, coupled by his fingers slowing inside her, she guesses that it was not what he was expecting to hear. For a second, she worries she’s said the wrong thing, came on too strongly, pushed herself too far forward on a weak limb.</p><p>Minute traces of panic creep through her fingertips as his hand slips from inside her, but are instantly quelled as he shifts his body completely over hers, and he cups her face with both of his hands. Cracks are starting to form in that smooth gloss masking his storm.</p><p>The next kiss is hungry, demanding. He’s quickly losing his will to hold back. His hands can’t sit still, and they trade places between holding her jaw, snaking into her hair, and gently squeezing the side of her neck, his thumbs carefully tracing over her trachea with measured restraint. She works on forcing him out of his shirt despite the mess of his hands, freeing his thick arms for her to grab onto appreciatively for purchase.</p><p>He moves back to her neck, twisting her face away with a firm grip of her chin, his palm daring to press deeper into her throat. She gasps at the feeling of his lips, enjoying the subtle pressure of his hand. Her hips start to move, seeking relief for the heated excitement flaring between her thighs, but as quickly as they start, she stops herself.</p><p>It doesn’t go unnoticed.</p><p>“It’s okay,” he says softly against her skin. “Don’t be shy. Show me how badly you want me.” His words of encouragement arouse a new layer of heat to her cheeks that she’s grateful he can’t see in the dark, but she gives in, letting her reservation melt away with the kisses he trails down to her collarbone. His hips meet hers as she grinds against him, and with it she lets out a pleased groan that curls his lips. If this is what it means to be submissive, then she has absolutely no complaints.</p><p>Soon after his hands glide beneath her shoulders, and she lifts herself to give his fingers room to slip off her bra. Her hands take root in wet clumps of his hair when he dips his head to her breast, taking the sensitive skin in his mouth and dragging his tongue around it until he’s pulling from her a light string of moans that grind his hips roughly against hers.</p><p>The tautness of her fingers alerts him of her growing impatience, closely matching his. His hands drift downward over her stomach, curling around the top of her panties and slipping them down her thighs, but then he freezes suddenly, cursing once he realizes he doesn’t have protection.</p><p>Luckily, she’s come prepared, and gestures for her purse on the table. He retrieves it for her, and jots down a quick mental reminder to stock up on his own supply, noting the exact brand labeled on the little square she produces triumphantly from her bag, holding it up in the air like a hard-earned trophy.</p><p>He takes it from her hands, then he steps off the bed to slip from the confines of his jeans, and she nudges her panties from her ankles using her feet. The dull light shining from above the headboard lights his skin aglow, and she watches the shadows of his large muscles dance along his arms while he unzips his pants and shifts to step out of them.</p><p>He moves at a slow enough pace that she can take in all of him with affectionate, sultry eyes, but not too slow so as to not waste any time. His patience is wearing dangerously thin, and even from the gaping distance between them she can see the storm of his eyes threatening to break the glass that holds him back.</p><p>Eyeing her body while he rolls on the condom only makes him eager to ingrain the shape of her to his hands’ memory. She lays with her head propped up by pillows, and she watches him with parted, wet lips and a hungry stare. One hand rests above her breast, as though she were holding her heart in place where it threatened to burst from her chest, while the other squeezes the comforter in anticipation. Her legs are bent, her knees resting together with her feet apart, and he’s not sure if she’s fully aware of the intimate display she gives him or if she’s doing it on purpose, but either way, it’s hidden, cast in the shadow of her thighs.</p><p>His hands part them needlessly as he moves over her, and she melds her chest to his as he settles on top of her. She cradles his jaw between her soft hands as he lowers his mouth to hers. The kiss is rough and filled with need, and when he plunges himself into her that need isn’t sated in the slightest; rather, it intensifies drastically.</p><p>The first few thrusts are careful, calculating, ensuring she isn’t uncomfortable or hurt, but the way she throws her head back in relief, the intensity of her grip as her hands slide to his shoulders, the way her legs wrap tightly around his waist, all push him just over the edge of caution.</p><p>His hips pick up in pace and soon he’s snapping against her in a steady rhythm, and he’s grabbing her wrists to pin her hands just above her crown, their fingers lacing together as he crushes his lips to hers possessively, devouring her pleasured cries in his throat. He has to pull away after a moment to allow them to breathe, and he inches their hands higher above her head, caging her face between his arms. As his thrusts grow rougher and faster, he grunts into her shoulder, and her voice rises higher in pitch, chiming in the air like a blissful song floating through his ears. It only pushes him to move faster, harder, deeper into her to see just how much she can take, how much higher he can guide her cries, until her back is arching sharply and her chest presses roughly into his, and her head is thrown back in a final cry as her body convulses with pleasure beneath his, and he follows shortly behind her with a throaty groan into the softness of her neck.</p><p>He rests there for a long moment, holding himself up just enough for her to breathe as deeply as she needs to, to catch her breath while he catches his, taking refuge in her warmth. She pries her hands from under his to hold him. Her fingertips massage his scalp lazily, smiling gently when stray tufts of his hair tickle her nose.</p><p>Aside from the dim light above them, the window is the only other source of light in the room, and so her eyes are drawn to the open space between the drapes. The sky outside is darker than their room, illuminated by the very same city lights she tenderly watched pass her by as she drove to see him earlier in the night.</p><p>The bubbling nervousness she’d felt then, to her, is simply ludicrous as she lay beneath him now, happy and content and without a care in the world. This isn’t how she’d pictured the night to progress, and she isn’t normally one to give into temptations, especially if those temptations breach her responsibilities.</p><p>But as she looks back down at him, at the scruffy, damp mess of his unruly hair sticking out between her fingers, Akane knows that he is undoubtedly, and always will be, an exception.</p>
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